East Pier, Folkstone Harbour

East Pier, Folkestone Harbour

A harbour pier attached to the eastern end of Folkestone Harbour, designed by Thomas Telford in 1829 and built that same year by the Commissioners of Jettees of Folkestone. The pier runs diagonally to the south-west, leaving a narrow harbour entrance. It measures 360 feet long with approximately 12 feet of its height visible at low tide.

The pier is constructed of massive blocks of Kentish ragstone rubble laid diagonally without mortar and battered towards the base. The southern end was encased in concrete, probably following a severe storm in 1877, and the structure also has concrete capping.

Historical Background

The project had a lengthy genesis. In 1806 the civil engineer William Jessop produced plans for a harbour at Folkestone comprising harbour walling to the south and west with a short eastern pier. In 1808 John Rennie compiled a report for the Commissioners for Revising the Civil Affairs of the Navy on the harbours of Folkestone, Dover and Ramsgate, motivated by the need for anchorages for warships during the Napoleonic wars. An Act for the Construction of Folkestone Harbour was passed in 1807, and in 1818 an Exchequer loan of £10,000 was made, though insufficient to complete the work.

In 1829 Thomas Telford produced a plan to divide the harbour into a tidal harbour and wet dock with a scouring basin accessed by a lock, with harbour walls of Kentish ragstone placed at an angle. He proposed masonry lining on sheeting piles to the piers to prevent shingle moving through the dry stone construction, but funds were unavailable for this scheme. According to W H Ireland's History of the County of Kent (1829), the sea had by then encroached on the town at its eastern point. The East Pier was erected as a consequence. As the Folkestone Harbour Company lacked funds, the Commissioners of Jettees of Folkestone undertook the work, using funds collected by duties on coal for sea defences. They followed the line shown in Telford's plans, though Telford's outer masonry face was never built. By 1836 the Harbour Master reported the harbour ready for shipping.

In April 1839 the Exchequer Loan Commissioners took possession of the harbour. By conveyance of April 1843 they sold it for £18,000 to Joseph Baxendale, William Parry Richards and Lewis Cubitt. Baxendale was Chairman of the South East Railway Company and Cubitt was the brother of the railway's Chief Engineer, William Cubitt. The plan was to extend the railway to the harbour so Folkestone would rival Dover as a harbour for steam packets to France. A plan of 1856 showed a complete harbour except for the north side, the east pier and associated railway buildings.